Customer Reviews

Dread Empire's Fall : The Praxis

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

While there are many excellent space opera stories, this one far exceeds the pack. I frankly am in awe of Williams' work on this story. Williams is one of the relatively few authors in the genre who can effectively and convincingly write intricate, functional, detailed intrigue. Many try, only to bore or disappoint their readers; Williams writes intrigue as if he was living it. This book contains relatively little action, though what action there is, is fast and furious. Mostly it's about setting the stage, yet for all that, it's very enjoyable, and pulls you in. You very quickly begin to identify with, and care about, the principle protagonists; the young officer, Lord Gareth Martinez, and the cadet Lady Caroline Sula.

The basic setup is reasonably standard: It's placed in that hoary old cliche, the last days of glory for a massive stellar empire. What Williams *does* with this tired cliche is what's so impressive. To start, he gives the empire a reasonable excuse for existence. Almost every one of the usual reasons for interstellar empire falls apart under any reasonable examination, and most space operas blithely ignore this as they move on with the action. While that's often just fine, and many excellent genre books have been written without any rational explanation for the existence of empire, Williams actually gives a plausible explanation for such a cumbersome and inefficient social structure: Religion. Old-fashioned, fanatical, unyielding, uncompromising, burn-the-heretics religion. In another break from the 'usual,' the religion isn't human. Humans don't run the empire, they're not even second in charge. Nor, to avoid another cliche, is humanity an oppressed bottom-of-the-heap victim. Instead, humans are respected, powerful, third members of the empire; essential parts of the machinery of empire, but nothing more special than that. Earth itself is merely one planet among many human worlds, and only mildly notable.

The religion in the case is the "Praxis," an uncompromising, vaguely feudal philosophy belonging to the undisputed masters of the empire, the Shaa. The Shaa have bent every species they've ever met to their will, and their will is the Praxis. No level of brutality has been spared in converting the various species to the Parxis, but once a species adapts to the Praxis, they are incorporated into the empire with full rights, and are assumed to be equals to all other species (save, of course for the Shaa... no one is equal to the Shaa). That's the theory, anyway. In practice, so long as the Shaa live, `practice' is pretty close to `theory.' Unfortunately for everyone, the Shaa are dying out. Having renounced immortality, the Shaa have diminished, and now only one remains. When the last Shaa dies, what will become the empire? At least one group has plans for the empire that don't include the status quo...

Williams breaks a number of other stereotypes: There is no pan-galactic integration, but rather the various species keep to their own planets and clusters for the most part, with the notable exception of the civil service and military. Likewise, crews of spaceships tend to be broken down along species lines in the name of efficiency. Communication between species is still an inexact science, though practical means to do so are available. Spaceships follow known physics and orbital mechanics, with strategy and warfare both being dictated by this. Interstellar traffic is via wormholes, with fairly fixed destinations. These facts will become crucial to the plot, and to the course of the empire.

Drop into this environment a skilled and ambitious young lord of a wealthy but very minor family, and the disrespectful last scion of a disgraced family, and the elements of the space opera are complete. What will young Lord Martinez do, when his patronage is lost with the death of the last Shaa? How will young Lady Sula, bereft of patronage from the start and possessed of an irreverent attitude, make her way in this new, unsettled universe? What plots are afoot, and what do they mean to the future of the empire, now that the Shaa are no more? What intrigues will take place, and where will personal ambition and species interest take the empire? *I'm* not telling, but finding out is a GOOD read.

Read it!

The remarkable thing about Dread Empires Fall is that very little actually happens. There is action and there is intrigue but it is rather understated. This is understandable as this is obviously a first novel in a proposed series. Even without the action I found myself interested and engaged. I found myself caring about the characters and the Empire as a whole. The author even managed to instill in me a sort of Xenophobic Human pride. I found myself being offended that Earth was a backwater planet and humanity nothing more then one more cog in the giant Empire of Species that is the Praxis.

As usual I do not wish to give too much of the plot away so the review lacks some specifics but trust me when I say this is a novel well worth reading and an author well worth watching. The only reason this is four stars versus five is that I don't believe it transcends the level of very good to great. This may change as we see the novel fit into the matrix of the series as it is written.

_The Praxis_ is the first volume of a series called collectively _Dread Empire's Fall_. This book is unabashed Space Opera, and I found it extremely fun reading. Every so often the characterization or the plotting seems to fall back on cliché -- and after the basic setup is pretty familiar, particular the rehashing of Naval Fiction standard situations. The book is also clearly the first of a series, thus the story doesn't really end -- those factors hold it short of excellence. But it's very good -- neatly conceived, with plenty of gripping action, and with two main characters who are interesting, and flawed in believable ways even while also supremely gifted in fairly standard commercial fiction fashions.

The parts of the Galaxy linked by an extensive wormhole network are ruled, as the story opens, by the long-lived aliens called Shaa. They control several other spacegoing species -- the lizardlike Naxids, humans, the birdlike Lai-Own, the furry Torminel, etc. The subordinate species seems essentially equal, sharing government and military posts, though there seem to be worlds, even sectors, dominated by one or another species.

Now the very last of the Shaa has decided to die. This impacts the future of Lord Gareth Martinez, an up and coming Naval officer. His main patron has been chosen to die along with the Shaa, and Martinez, a provincial, is left without a sponsor. But he gains some fame when he coordinates a daring rescue attempt. The rescue attempt is piloted by Lady Caroline Sula, the only remaining member of a formerly powerful family that has fallen into disgrace. The two are both decorated, and when they meet each other, sparks fly. But Sula has some deep personal issues which make her skittish about relationships.

Martinez ends up posted to a ship run by a football-mad Captain. Martinez and a few others including his trusty old batman (yes, a cliché) run the ship while the Captain deals with the football. The ship makes its way to a Naxid dominated system, and Martinez notices some very suspicious Naxid behaviour. He concludes correctly that they are planning to take advantage of the power vacuum left by the death of the last Shaa and try to assert their status as the first race conquered by the Shaa and take the Shaa position at the top of the heap. Martinez's perspicacity and his brilliant tactics keep the Naxid operation from being a complete success. Meanwhile back on the capitol planet the Naxid coup is also less than successful, and Sula in again in place to demonstrate heroism.

And so come the opening battles of what looks likely to be an extended war. The book ends pretty much on a note of "to be continued". Cleary Martinez and Sula are destined for each other one way or another, though Williams has managed to make their future ambiguous -- Sula's past could come back to haunt her, and Martinez' conceit and overweening ambition could ruin things as well. I'll be eagerly looking forward to future volumes, and I'm sure there will be plenty more space battles, alien political intrigue, and an involving personal pair of stories for our two heroes.

H. Beam Piper was a favorite author of mine, Walter Jon Williams is a favorite today. His "Ambassador of Progress" and "Hardwired" are two of the best Science Fiction novels ever written. In the past few years I have lost my taste for fiction, generally, but the Science Fiction of this author is the exception.

This opening tale of "The Praxis" is some of his finest work; the book was impossible for me to put down, and I searched until I found a copy of "The Sundering", the second novel in the series, and couldn't put it down until I finished it, either.

I've always liked Walter Jon Williams's novels. A while ago he wrote a very underrated novel called, "Days of Atonement", which still remains one of my favorite time travel books ever. Prior to that he wrote some very good sci-fi novels, but recently has gotten away from that. I am very happy to see him go back to his roots and write a hard core sci-fi series. The Praxis is the first of a series that promises to be entertaining and rewarding. I really enjoyed this book and can't wait for the next. The characters were rich, believable and well placed within their culture and universe. Williams does a great job of writing about a futuristic military where form takes place over substance. The main character, Gareth Martinez is a wonderful personage and the best part of the book is watching him shake off his upbringing nad useless training as he figures out how to command a spaceship in an actual war. How hard is it for an ancient and traditional service to actually fight a space battle when no one in the whole fleet has ever fought one before? Well, read this book to find out. I highly recommend this one for anyone looking for a good science fiction novel with a touch of humor so welcome as it is so lacking in many works nowadays. I despise the term, "Space Opera" which is thrown around so frequently these days. Read it for what it is and enjoy it.

Walter Jon Williams has rarely repeated himself for almost 20 years and almost always puts a twist on standard SF conventions. The Dread Empire cycle, of which I just finished the 3rd, "Conventions of War", is concerned both with the two leading characters, Martinez and Sula and with military history. I'll stick to the military part.

What WJW is doing is looking at how a rigidly structured, extremely hierarchical and militarized society can result in a dogmatic and incompetent military, where rank is bought or awarded by patronage. This, more than just Sula and Martinez, is the core of what "Dread Empire" is about - the inertia of conventions and traditions in a system that has stagnated for so long. Yes, this has been done before, but it is very well done here, by someone who doesn't usually do military sf.

Suddenly a rebellion has just broken out within the empire, starting with a sneak attack that has destroyed lots of "loyalist" ships (a la Pearl Harbor). Martinez and Sula, both very junior officers and low-ranking nobles (Peers) are aware that massing warships close together is not a smart move given the power of antimatter missiles. But that's the way the Navy has done it for over 4000 years of dictatorial peace, without ever fighting a battle. The advantage? Excellent control by a fleet's commanding officers of the ships during drills, which makes you look good. Otherwise, if you separate too far, your lightspeed communications get in the way of your command and control. And, it doesn't matter anyway, as each drill, wargame and maneuver is "scripted" - everything is pre-ordained, right down to who will win the wargame and what simulated damages each ship will suffer.

Martinez and Sula win several battles against the odds by breaking the rules and employing novel tactics, but are constantly getting muzzled and backstabbed by their more senior and incompetent commanders. Can they win by convincing more clearheaded superiors? Can they do the right thing and avoid court-martials?

Sure it sounds farfetched. But read up on European military history around WWI, with French generals who argue that bayonets will invariably prevail against machine guns. Or Russian generals from the nobility who refuse to move their troops by train, "because infantry is about walking". Look at the obstacles that Guderian (Germany - tank warfare) and Mitchell (US - aircraft carriers) encountered when challenging established military doctrine.

The only regret I have about the books is that they skimp on the Naxid's motivations and "de-humanize" them. Not entirely unreasonable though, as nobody can understand their language anyway! But it is clear that their society isn't much more dynamic than the loyalist's.

Give it a read, especially if you don't know WJW - he is one of the best and most versatile SF authors, but remains relatively unknown.

I picked this book while waiting for the new Dune book to come out expecting to read a few chapters and put it down as i do with most books i get because they end up boring me. I finnished it in two days. The depth and thought that went into creating the soceity and characters is great i felt like i was there. WHile the book is low on action it is high on story. You get a real feel for how the society in the book works and I fully intend to pick up the next installment the Sundering.

This book was brilliant. A space opera that folds in court intrigue, characters with dark secrets, romance and military strategy without dragging down the pace. When I finished it, I gave it to my wife, and she was up until three a.m. with it.

Anyone who enjoys David Weber or Lois McMasters Bujold should pick this one up *now*.

I concur with another reviewer who remarked that space opera has not yet seen its Aubrey-Maturin saga (not counting of course, Star Trek's Kirk and Spock). Walter Jon Willams has done a superb job elevating space opera to a high literary art form, writing a captivating tale about the demise of a long-lived, despotic interstellar empire. It's a compelling saga focusing on two young Terran naval officers, Lady Caroline Sula, and especially, Lieutenant Gareth Martinez; it is Martinez who uncovers a plot by the Naxids, the second oldest member species of the empire, to seize control and become the new masters of the empire. Although I questioned originally Williams' decision to reveal some pivotal moments in Sulla's history, these moments are crucial in revealing her personality and motives to the reader. Williams has written splendid work in cyberpunk fiction and a successful fusion of it with space opera, so I am not at all surprised that he's been able to pull this off. Fans of David Weber's "Honorverse" may find this novel not only more compelling, but also, much better written than any by Weber and his colleagues about Honor Harrington and other characters in Weber's ongoing space opera series.

When you see on the cover "Dread Empire's Fall" in large type, and "The Praxis" in smaller type, you suspect this is the first of a series, and you'd be right. And by the time you pelt through Mr. Williams's deftly told tale you'll probably want to continue on with him, because he has a way of turning space opera into an art form all its own.

All the standard elements are here--a tyrannic race falls, successor races (Homo sapiens among them, of course) battle for primacy, and there is much contrast between the aristocracy and the lower classes. Why it is obligatory in these far-future epics that a neoliberal society structured along military-civil class-ordered lines similar to the British Raj be the norm, I do not know; but norm it is. Whatever: the author makes great use of the convention here, and he brings some fresh ideas of his own to the table as well.

He's created two memorable characters, too: Gareth Martinez of the space fleet, and the green-eyed blonde, Caroline Sula--space cadet, genius, and probably the only porcelain connoisseuse in the genre (when she comes into some money she can't decide whether to buy a new apartment or a vase). There hasn't been anything quite like her since we first made the acquaintance of Catherine Asaro's Soz Valdoria, and from the moment Mr. Williams introduces her, she dominates the tale. You become hooked not only on what she's going to do, but how she got where she is.

Gareth, on the other hand, at first seems far more conventional. He's an ambitious striver from a minor aristocratic family, and he's not a fool. Unlike his colleagues, he learns that because conditions are rapidly changing, he must learn to think outside the box--that's something Caroline's known all along.

We meet them first as they try to rescue an out-of-control space yacht. It's a terrific sequence, and its only the beginning.

First of (at least) three.